Clean Burn

by Karen Sandler

  “Any idea where Mrs. Bertram is?” I asked, trying to rub some circulation back into my fingers.

  They walked in place, arms pumping. “Grandson picks her up early on Saturdays,” George told me, barely out of breath. “Spends the day with her.”

  I flashed my dog-eared photos of Enrique and James. “Have you seen either of these kids around here?”

  “This is an adults-only park.” Raelene sneered in the general direction of Beck’s mobile home. “Which is why they sent him here to live. Believe me, if I saw anyone under the age of eighteen with him, I’d be on the phone to the sheriff’s office.”

  “Has Beck been home? I noticed his mail is gone.”

  “I haven’t seen him,” Raelene said, fingertips against her wrist, eyes fixed on her watch.

  “Do you know where he might have gone?”

  Raelene lifted her knees higher as she marched. “I overheard him tell the manager he was going to visit his sister up in Santa Rosa.”

  Santa Rosa. Where my Fresno undercover buddy, luvzboyz, had told me a young boy had been requested on the internet. I didn’t like the coincidence. If Beck was up there, he might well be up to no good.

  “Have you ever met his sister?” I asked.

  “Never. I spend as little time in that man’s presence as I can.” Raelene snagged George’s arm. “Got to keep our heart-rate up.” Off they went.

  I could see two possibilities, both of them ugly. Either the sister did exist and Beck used his visits with her to either get close to his nephews or some other young boys in Santa Rosa without being under Ken’s nose. Or there was no sister at all. He’d mentioned her to Mrs. Bertram and the manager just to give him cover for his trips to Santa Rosa. He could be president of the local Man-Boy Love association up there and Ken would be none the wiser.

  I climbed back into the Escort, unsettled by Paul Beck’s continued absence. Even though it would be the most outrageous quirk of fate if Beck was in Santa Rosa picking up the young boy luvzboyz mentioned and even more bizarre if that boy happened to be Enrique, I still wouldn’t be satisfied until I could talk to the molester. If he didn’t turn up today and I left as planned, I’d likely never get the chance to grill him.

  Cranking on the engine, I eyed the car clock. Not quite nine. If I intended to go home later today, I had to check out of the Gold Rush Inn by eleven. I knew I ought to do that now, before I started my interviews. Then I could take off when I either ran out of time or ran out of townspeople to harass.

  But I drove right past the Gold Rush Inn, hunching a little as I passed under the glowering 49er. He probably still didn’t forgive me for painting a certain part of his anatomy pink back in junior high.

  Over the years, Emil’s Cafe probably would have spent more time shut down due to health violations than it would have serving hash browns and burgers if Emil’s brother, Constantin, hadn’t worked for the county health inspector. I’d actually worked at Emil’s the summer I’d turned fifteen and quickly adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to what those cockroaches were doing in the dry stores room.

  When I entered the time warp of Emil’s, I was astounded that so little had changed in the twenty years since I’d left. The same cast iron skillets and copper bottom pots hung on the walls, although the inch of dust that had always coated them was gone. The gothic-looking, wrought-iron chandeliers still lit the place, but the cobwebs that had given Emil’s a year- round Halloween ambiance had been cleared out.

  The cast of characters had changed, too. I didn’t recognize the twentyish blonde balancing four plates as she threaded her way through the tables, or the late- twenties, dark-haired guy working the kitchen. The cook had Emil’s hawk nose and eye squint, so I suspected the family still owned the place.

  I sat at the counter and plucked a menu from its holder behind the napkin dispenser. Same old grease-larded breakfasts, but they had added a spinach and cream cheese omelet.

  The waitress headed back my way with a twenty and a food ticket. “Give me a minute, hon,” she said before ringing up the sale.

  The waitress—her nametag read Diana—slapped a plastic glass of ice water in front of me. “Coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  She set down a mug and filled it with coffee. The cook caught my eye and smiled as he slid two filled plates on the pass-through and dinged the bell. A big improvement from Emil, who was convinced everyone he encountered was ready to either cheat him or stab him in the back.

  “Give me just another sec.” Diana grabbed the steaming plates.

  While I waited, I dumped two sugar packets and three creamers into my coffee. “Is Emil still around?” I asked when Diana returned.

  “Passed away,” she told me. “That’s his grandson. Andros and I just took over the place six months ago.”

  “I bussed tables here back in high school. Hasn’t changed much.”

  She looked around. “Yeah, the decorating scheme is hideous. I’m working on Andros to update but I haven’t gotten past the nostalgia factor yet.”

  I laid the boys’ photos on the counter. “Any chance you’ve seen either of these kids?”

  She studied them a moment, then picked up James’s picture for a closer look. “My husband might have seen this boy. Andros? Come take a look at this.”

  He pushed through the swinging doors and took the photo Diana held out to him. “Who’s this?”

  “Could be that kid you saw,” Diana said. “Remember the nutcase guy?”

  “Yeah. Right.” Andros tapped the photo. “Could be him.”

  “When was this?”

  “We started closing early about four months ago,” Diana said. “I think it was about a month after that. Late December? Not long after Christmas.” She caught sight of a customer holding up his coffee mug. She grabbed the pot and headed off for a refill.

  “Emil’s used to stay open until ten,” Andros told me. “Once Diana had the baby, we started closing at eight instead.”

  Diana returned and started another pot of coffee. “I was nursing the baby in one of the booths and this guy pounded on the door, all frantic. Scared me half to death.”

  “What did he look like?” I asked.

  “Creepy looking,” Diana said. “Big full beard, eyes a little crazy looking. Andros saw the kid with him.”

  “In the car,” Andros said. “I unlocked the door to see what the guy wanted, and he had his car parked out front.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “A Volvo 240 sedan,” Andros said. “Probably early 80s.”

  “Why so sure of the make?”

  “Same as my first car,” he said, smiling. “A hand-me- down from my granddad.”

  I could easily imagine the thrifty Emil driving such a sensible car. “What color?”

  “Dark. Navy blue or black.” His brow furrowed as he tried to bring back the memory. “There was a decal on the windshield, a parking pass for CCSF. It stuck in my mind because I took some hospitality classes there before we took over the cafe.”

  CCSF. City College of San Francisco. The Airport Campus was on the other side of McLaren Park from me. “So you saw James in the car.”

  “He was in the front seat. A woman was sitting in the back. I thought it was a little weird that the kid was black and the guy and his wife were both white.”

  “But it could have been him?” I asked, pointing to James’s photo.

  He glanced at the picture again. “Looks about the right age. He wasn’t smiling when I saw him. Looked a little scared.”

  A customer yelled for Diana and she hurried away. I took the photo back from Andros. “Have you seen him since?”

  He shook his head. “I should have done something. I had a feeling something wasn’t right.”

  “You couldn’t have known. I’m sure you had other things on your mind.” I appreciated the fact that Andros had a conscience. “Do you know what the guy was so frantic about?”

  “He needed some baby aspirin. You know ho
w it is around here, small town like this rolls up their sidewalks early. Nothing was open and I guess their baby had a fever.”

  “Did you see a baby?”

  “The woman might have been holding one. She had something in her arms. But she never got out of the car.”

  I thanked him, turned to go, then spun back. “That night, was there a fire anywhere nearby? In a trash can or dumpster?”

  I saw the surprise in his face. “One of the trash cans across the street. We saw it smoldering as we were heading for home. I had a gallon jug of water in the trunk and poured that on it. I figured it was kids, or a smoker who didn’t put out their butt.”

  With another thank you, I left. Apparently, James had been here in Greenville, with the same man that Emma at McDonald’s had seen him with. Sounded as if the baby was with them as well. And based on timeline, that might have been their dark sedan at the Hangman’s Tavern later that night when the dumpster burned. No way of knowing if James or the baby were still here, but the McD’s girl had heard them ask about Greenville, which implied this was their final destination.

  A hand on the door to the Escort, my gaze strayed over to Greenville Electronics, directly across Main Street from Emil’s. McPherson had said the shop had sent someone over to Mrs. Lopez’s house to install a new television and Blu-Ray. ft hadn’t occurred to me at the time to ask who’d done the installation. If the guy was still local, maybe he could give me some insight into where Mrs. Lopez might have moved. And if I got another look at the invoice, maybe I could make out whether there was a phone number at the bottom.

  I hitched my way over to the electronics store, my left leg surprisingly supple after Ken’s morning massage. I wondered if I could wrangle another session from him before I headed home.

  The electronics store’s front door was locked. A CLOSED sign hung from a placard listing the hours, nine to six. I peered inside, looking for some indication Rich McPherson was in residence. Although the lights were on, no one was home. I knocked on the door. Maybe the guy was in the office or crouched out of sight behind the counter. No luck.

  As I crossed the street again, I heard my cell phone trilling out the last notes of a call through the open window of the Escort. Caller ID didn’t display the number.

  About thirty seconds later, the phone beeped, telling me I had a voice message. I pressed the retrieve message button and punched in my access code.

  It was Ken. “Janelle, get over to the SaveMart. Rich McPherson just spotted Lucy Polovko there with a little Hispanic boy. It could be Enrique.”

  I disconnected and tossed the phone to the seat, then cranked on the engine. As I backed out into Main Street,

  I nearly creamed someone pulling into the parking space beside me. My tires squealed as I jetted off toward the highway, trying to form a mental map of where the SaveMart was with respect to Greenville. It was no more than twenty minutes away, a few miles down Highway 50.

  A sprawling department store-cum-supermarket, the SaveMart was huge by Greenville standards. Built long before big box stores had begun to dominate small towns across the nation, SaveMart had been the bane of Greenville’s mom and pops and the guilty pleasure of its citizens.

  The two decades since I’d seen it last hadn’t been kind to the SaveMart. As I pulled into the near-empty parking lot, I could see the place looked worn out. A window broken and boarded up, trash overflowing the bins, weeds creeping through cracks in the asphalt parking lot.

  Ken’s Explorer was parked beside Lucy’s old truck. A pickup with a cheapo blue paint job was positioned behind Lucy’s vehicle, blocking it from leaving. McPherson stood beside his Chevy, hand wrapped around the stub of a broken radio antenna, looking jittery as a cat.

  I’d seen it before in citizens taking police matters into their own hands. They couldn’t handle the adrenaline rush.

  “You need me to stay?” he asked, looking ready to jump out of his skin.

  “Go on back to the shop,” Ken told him. “The fewer the civilians, the better.”

  Ken and I headed toward the store. “Rich was getting ready to open up when he saw Lucy drive by. He spotted the little boy in the car. Rich got in his truck and followed Lucy, called me as he drove.”

  “Called you and not 911?”

  “He’s got my cell since Cassie hangs out so much at the store.” He pushed open the door for me. “The deputy that works this zone is at least an hour away on a domestic abuse call. On top of that, we’ve got an Amber Alert this morning. A little boy taken from his bedroom. A witness saw a man driving away from the scene.”

  That put a fist to my gut. “You’re sure Lucy is still in here?”

  “I called ahead and made sure they had employees on both doors.” He pointed a thumb at the young girl in a SaveMart shirt fidgeting by the entrance. “She hasn’t left.”

  “What about the bathroom?” I glanced over in the direction of the women’s room.

  “They’ve been locked.” Ken motioned me past the registers. “You take this end of the aisles. I’ll take the other.”

  Out of habit, I patted my hip where my Sig Sauer would have been. Nothing there but the box of matches stuffed in my jeans pocket. I wouldn’t need a weapon. The idea of Lucy with a gun was laughable. Even still, knowing how unbalanced she was, I missed having a sidearm handy.

  Ken and I kept pace as we passed the pharmaceutical aisle, then personal products and hair care, then paper products. I thought we might get a hit on the candy aisle, but there were only a couple women browsing the Junior Mints and Tootsie Rolls. They looked up in surprise when they saw the sheriff and my own skinny self eyeing them in passing.

  We hit pay dirt on the toy aisle. Lucy held the boy in her arms, snuggled up against her chest. Dressed in striped shirt and denim overalls, a ball cap on his head, the boy looked the right age to be Enrique, but I couldn’t see his face clearly.

  Lucy stood pondering a display of dolls with frilly pink-skirts. Beyond the creepiness factor of the decrepit Lucy holding that sweet innocence so close, the thought of her buying a foo-foo doll for the boy seemed peculiar.

  My leg took that opportunity to suddenly cramp, the instant pain throwing me off-balance and into a display of cheapo video games. The noise of the plastic handhelds falling to the floor alerted Lucy to my presence. Sudden paranoia twisted her face and she turned away from me as if seeking escape. Ken was already there.

  “Lucy, let go of the boy,” Ken said, his voice soft and calm.

  Lucy clutched the kid tighter. “You won’t take my baby girl.”

  Baby girl? I crept up the aisle, trying to get a closer look. The boy had his face buried in Lucy’s neck. “His folks are pretty worried about him. How about you put him down?”

  Looking from me to Ken, Lucy just shook her head. “She might get lost again.”

  Ken closed in from the other side. “You see anything in her hands, Janelle?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” The smelly, ragged dress Lucy wore could have hidden any number of deadly weapons, but the madwoman didn’t seem inclined to let go of her prize to reach in her pockets.

  Ken got near enough to take Lucy’s arm. “No one wants to take your baby girl. We just need to check her over real quick. Make sure she’s okay.”

  Sudden tears filled Lucy’s eyes. “My baby girl’s not sick again, is she?”

  I put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, cringing at the odor wafting from her. “She might be. How about if you let us take a look?”

  Reluctantly, Lucy relinquished her hold, letting the boy slide to the floor. I picked him up the moment he was on his feet, finally getting a good look at his face.

  Not Enrique. Disappointment tied a knot in my stomach.

  Ken pulled Lucy’s hands behind her back and cuffed her. She went completely apeshit, screaming at the top of her lungs as Ken muscled her down the aisle. I followed with the boy.

  “Is it Enrique?” Ken shouted over Lucy’s indignation.

  “Must be your Amber Aler
t,” I yelled back. “But I thought witnesses saw a man.”

  Ken sidestepped an attempted head butt by Lucy. “They must have been mistaken.”

  I followed with the boy. “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  He yawned. “Norberto.”

  “Norberto, what?”

  He shrugged. Too young to know his last name, or too shy to tell me.

  I bought a Three Musketeers bar at the checkout counter and unwrapped it for Noberto. A little chocolate would go a long way toward making things better.

  By the time I got outside, Ken had shoehorned Lucy into the back of the Explorer. She’d gone nearly catatonic at that point, rocking in the restraint cage, mouth open, eyes wide. I took Norberto over to my car, keeping him out of sight of Lucy. Ken came over as I set him in the front seat.

  “I’d heard stories that Lucy was married once,” Ken said. “Maybe she had a little girl.”

  “But after all this time, why would she suddenly go looking for a kid to snatch? And how’d she manage to take him anyway?” I winced as Norberto smeared a chocolate-coated hand on my cloth seat.

  “Mom had left Norberto playing in his room while she cleaned up from breakfast. There was a slit in the bedroom window screen. Lucy must have cut the screen, then talked the kid into coming over to the window. When he got close enough, she just reached in and grabbed him.”

  I found a stack of napkins in the glove box and made a vain attempt to tidy up the little boy’s hands. “Considering Lucy’s state of mind, can you picture her reasoning all that out?”

  “No. And I checked her odometer just now. Not enough change since yesterday’s reading to account for a trip to the boy’s house and a trip here.” Ken glanced over at the madwoman in the back of the Explorer. “It makes no sense. But she had the boy.”

  “Mom on her way?” Norberto smiled up at me, chocolate from ear to ear.

  “One of my Spanish-speaking deputies is bringing her over.” Ken turned back to me. “I appreciate you letting him sit in your car. Lucy’s riled up enough as it is.”

  “No problem.” Other than the handprint in chocolate on my car window. “You going to search Lucy’s place?”